Metal Work

Cleaning up one of my
uglier welds

New Toys
One of the great things about new projects is the opportunity to acquire new tools. One of the first things I did before starting the actual project was to install an air compressor for the garage.  I got lucky here and picked up a used industrial compressor for less than $100.  The impact wrench, cutoff tool, and die grinder I got cost way more than the compressor.  In fact, the material to install the compressor (had to run a new 220v line in the garage) was more than the compressor.  So now I have air in the garage!  I also added some other tools including a 4" grinder, essential for the metal work I've been doing.  I also borrowed to important tools from friend, a MIG wire welder and a chop saw.  I would be nice to have more metal working tools, like a drill press, band saw, etc. but I don't really have the room for them in my garage.

Motor Mount

My simple motor mount

The first order of business was to create a motor mount to hold the front of the motor in place.  Initially I thought I was going to have to fabricate a rather complicated bracket that attached the new electric motor to the existing motor mounts.  However, after dropping the new motor in place, I discovered the mounts for the steering arms were in an ideal location just in front of the motor on either frame rail.  All I had to do was make plates to match the existing bolt pattern for the steering arms and then weld an angle between them and drill holes for the bolts to the motor itself.  This worked out really nicely.

Battery Boxes

Battery "box" before installation

After some considerable thought and discussions with a number of other folks who had done EV conversions, I decided I didn't really need boxes for my batteries, just racks to hold the.  The plastic shells of the batteries are really robust, and I saved weight by just using steel angles to form the frames. The image at the right shows a typical box before it was installed in the vehicle.  The bottom is 1"x1" steel angle and the top is 1/2"x1/2" angle.  Threaded rods are used to bolt the top to the bottom holding the batteries in place.  Along the sides of the box are aluminum channels (2"x1") which are connected by additional threaded rods.  These channels are used to compress the batteries.  One characteristic of the lithium batteries is they can swell when they get hot.  The swellings causes the plates inside the battery to separate and this quickly ruins the batteries.  Therefor, some way of compressing the batteries is essential.  A lot of folks use steel or aluminum plates with tie rods.  I chose the channels because they were easy to cut and the channels are stiffer than a flat plate with much less aluminum.

Bracket fabricated to attach battery
box to the truck frame

Getting the boxes mounted in the vehicle took a good deal of creativity and and a lot of work.  The basic technique was to create brackets from additional steel angle and attach the brackets to the boxes and the truck's frame.  The brackets were welded to the boxes, but I tried as much as possible to avoid welding on the frame.  Since I'm not a very good welder, I didn't want to screw up the frame with a crappy weld.  The image at the left shows the used to attach one of the boxes to the truck frame.  In this case I was able to attach the bracket to an existing set of bolt holes originally used to hold the gas tank in place.  I was often able to use existing holes as bolt locations for the brackets.  In other cases I had to drill new holes in the frame and in two cases I had to weld tabs onto the frame. Once I got the technique down, things went steadily (if a bit slowly).  The final configuration is shown below.  There are 29 batteries in the back of the truck in three separate banks of 12, 12 and 5 batteries each, plus one bank of 7 batteries up front under the hood.

 

Three rear battery banks

Front battery bank and motor

The next step is to design the layout of all the electrical equipment that goes under the hood.  I'll need to fabricate a box to hold the motor controller and associated gear and figure out a way to attach that under the hood.  Then will come the serious wiring work.

New powertrain and new skills

HPEV AC-50 Motor, adapter
plate (red thing), & clutch

The Electric Drive Train

It was a pretty good weekend on the EV conversion front.  I got a bunch more of my parts this last week including my electric motor!  The motor was built by High Performance Electric Vehicle Systems (HPEV) just 15 minutes down the road from me, in Pomona.  I got to visit their shop and meet one of the owners, Brian Seymour. Besides looking at their production line and learning about the history of the company (they've been winding motors for nearly 50 year) I got to drive Brian EV Porsche 911--pretty cool.  They've also done a really nice Jetta conversion. 

Motor bolted to the original, but
rebuilt manual transmission

Back to my conversion, the motor I'm using is an HPEV AC-50 which is an AC motor which can draw up to 650 amps at 115 volts. The motor bolts on to the original manual transmission using an adapter that mimics the end of the old gasoline engine.  My adapter was manufactured by Canadian Electric Vehicles. The adapter includes a plate that bolts on to the motor and the transmission and a hub that attaches to the motor shaft and bolts on to the original fly wheel.  Since I had the transmission out I replaced the clutch and throwout bearing at the same time. 

Motor and transmission going in

After bolting up the motor and transmission I enlisted the help of my friend, Chris, to put it all back in the truck.  We made a second trip to our local tool rental guy to get an engine hoist and drop that baby right in.  It was all going without a hitch until I found that I should have ground out a section of the adapter plate to make room for the clutch piston. Since we already had the rear of the transmission bolted in place I ground out the notch with the motor and transmission in place. It was a pretty ugly job, but it worked--a lesson in thinking ahead.  Anyway, we got the new motor and transmission in place.  Chris also replaced all four shocks for me.  I still need to fabricate a bracket to bolt the electric motor to the existing motor mounts on the chassis.

The notch I should have ground out
before dropping the motor in place

New skills
Speaking of fabricating metal stuff, I solved my problem of getting welding done by learning to do it myself today.  I had originally planned to purchase my welding services from a buddy by trading homebrew lessons and beer for welding but my welder is about to head off to Burning Man next week just when I needed his help.  Not to worry, he introduced me to another friend of his who taught me how to use his wire feed MIG welder and loaned me the equipment!

I learned gas welding years ago and tried, unsuccessfully, several time to learn arc welding.  Arc welding is a skill that required more time and patience than I had to learn properly.  Thankfully, in the intervening years two breakthroughs have made welding way easier:  wire feed machines, and auto darkening lenses.  With these new (to me) tools and my previous gas welding experience, I was off and welding in 30 minutes!  I worked on a couple parts of the the battery boxes.  My welds are still a little ugly, but they'll get better. I can't wait to spend some time this week welding up my battery boxes and a bracket for the motor.  I think I'll have to play hooky for a day--wait, it's still summer vacation, and I'm not getting paid--I don't have to play hooky, I just need to stay home and enjoy working on my EV project!

My supplier

A big shout out to Wistar Rhodes at KTA Services.  I've purchased all of my EV parts from KTA with the exception of the batteries.  I wanted the help of a knowledgeable EV vendor to help me select the right parts since I could easy ruin a $4,000 motor or $8,000 of batteries with the wrong parts.  I contacted several vendors and found Wistar at KTA to be both knowledgeable and helpful.  He's already spent several hours on the phone with me discussing the pros and cons of various components.  I found KTA prices to be very competitive. I recommend KTA to those that want help selecting components.

Parts arrive!

The new fuel tank for the truck.
32, 3.2 volt lithium batteries.

The parts have started to arrive.  It's like Christmas in August!  I picked up the batteries from the local distributor today--all 450 lbs of them. The battery pack consists of 36, 3.2 volt, lithium batteries connected in series for a total nominal voltage of 115 v.  The batteries are rated at 180 amp-hours. If my calculations are right, this should give about a 50 mile range on a fully charged battery pack.  Now I have the task of designing the fixtures and boxes to hold the batteries. As I mentioned in an earlier post, most of the batteries will be going under the bed of the pickup between the frame members.  I've made a SktechUp model of the frame and the drive train, which you can see below.  It's a little crude but accurate enough to determine the basic battery layout. The layout below shows all 36 batteries under the bed.  I think I'll move some of the batteries up to the engine compartment to help with weight balance. The electric motor I'm putting in weights quite a bit less than than the gas engine I removed, so it will help to put some of the batteries up front.

First option for battery placement under the truck bed

I've also received a lot of the miscellaneous parts including, vacuum pump (for the power brakes), DC/DC converter (to run the 12 volt accessories off the 115 volt main battery pack), wiring, relays, fuses, contactor, throttle control box, & tools.  I'm still awaiting three major parts:  the motor, the motor/transmission adapter, and the battery management system.

Well I'm off to design some battery boxes.

Committed

The old engine and transmission
removed from the truck

Well there's no turning back now.  The internal combustion engine (ICE) is gone, gone, gone.  Ripped that baby out, threw it in the back of my friend's, pickup (along with a lot of other stuff I won't need now: gas tank, exhaust system, radiator . . .) and made a deposit at our local auto recycling center.  It was pretty cool pulling up to the recycling center and saying we wanted to make a donation.

All the stuff we no longer need

All that's left is a nice large space awaiting an electric motor, controller and some batteries.  The bulk of the batteries will be going in the back, under the truck bed, but there will be some up front under the hood. I still need to figure out exactly how the battery pack will be installed.

All this space just waiting
for an electric motor

The transmission will need to go out for a rebuild.  I noticed while driving it around that the synchronizer from 1st to 2nd was shot.  With all the work to do the conversion  it seemed like a good idea to go ahead and have the transmission rebuilt.  I thought about doing it myself, but I think I'll leave this to someone who's done it more than once.  I'm still finalizing my engine and battery pack selection.  I should be able to make a final decision this weekend and place the order first thing next week.

The Work Begins

After repairing lights, before demolition

Pre-Demolition Work

I've finally started actually working on the conversion.  Before I could start the conversion to an EV I had to fix the existing electrical system.  The truck started and ran OK but most of the lights were inoperative.  After a bunch of troubleshooting I finally isolated the problem to the switch module on the steering column.  I removed the module, cleaned the contacts, and voila everything worked!  I no longer had to avoid taking the truck out in the evening for fear I'd be out after dusk without headlights.  I actually completed all the repairs in late June, but further works was delayed by my attendance at a conference subsequent vacation.

Demolition Phase I: Bed Removal

Bed raised off the frame

Since the battery pack is going to reside under the pickup bed, I needed to remove bed so I can fabricate and install racks to hold the batteries.  The bed was amazingly light.  Two people could easily pick it up off the frame.  According the the manual, you unbolt the bed from the frame, hook four straps to the bed and lift it with an overhead wench.  Unfortunately I lacked the wench and was working by myself.  I got a little creative raised the on 2x4s bit by bit until it was above the frame.  I did get help from my wife to move the various stanchions under the 2x4s as I lifted them up. 

Look Ma, no truck

 Then I simply drove the truck out from under the bed  as slowly lowered the bed to the ground a step at a time. I was then able to move the bed out of the garage using a dolly.  Cal-OSHA would definitely have not approved of my methods but I was kinda pleased with the creative if somewhat precarious solution.

Kinda stumpy looking without the bed

The truck looks really funny without the bed on--definitely something missing.  It's also a amazing to me how little  there is to the frame.  When I look at a car or truck it looks so big, bulky, and substantial.  But once you've pulled the body off a revealed the frame, there just so little of it there. And that's a good thing for EV conversion.  All that space between the frame members is 

Look at all that space for batteries

where most of the batteries will go.  I have to fashion a series of racks to hold the batteries so they're completely below the frame members.  I'll then replace the bed but add a hinge mechanism so I can lift the bed to get to the batteries.  Both the exhaust system and the gas tank will be removed which will open up even more space for the battery pack.

Demolition Phase II: Preparation for Removing the Engine

Engine waiting to be pulled out

With the bed removed I got to some serious demolition--removing fuel tank, radiator, exhaust system, and all the stuff connected to the engine.  It's amazing how much stuff I wont need in the converted truck.  To facilitate access to the engine compartment I removed the hood and set to work.  There's a lot more stuff connected to engines than there was in the '70s when I last worked on cars.  To get the engine out I will need that overhead wench or else I'll have to rent an engine hoist.  I also need some help to get the engine out.  My friend, Chris, is coming next weekend to help with the engine removal.  Now I just have figure out how to rig the wench.

Junk yards and dung beetles

I'm still in the process of making general repairs to the truck.  Ironically, I had to get the engine tuned up to past the California smog test so that I could transfer the title so that I can take the engine out and replace it with an electric motor.  Also replaced the worn out and leaky tires.

Auto salvage yard and environs in
Queens, NY photo by Jim Henderson

Made another trip to one of my local auto salvage yard (aka junk yard) last weekend to pick out some needed parts including, seat belts, rear view mirror, sun visors, and some electrical switches.  I find these really fascinating places.  First off, they're such entertaining venues that the can charge admission--really it's $2 to enter.  The entry fee does allow you to leave and reenter the same day, so if you get hungry and haven't yet had you fill of scavenging you can run out for a quick burrito and get back in without and additional $2 fee.   The reentry policy also allows to run out to your car, remove a part you're trying to replace and bring it into the junk yard to make sure the part you're pulling off of some old hulk will fit your car.  Now this has got to be the best deal in the entertainment industry today. Can you imagine your local multiplex allow you free reentry after you'd paid for one movie?  That just 'aint gonna' happen.  But, at my local salvage yard, I can spend all day entertaining myself with rackets, hammers, grease, oil, and just plain dirt for only $2!  Some of the yard even have food stands and tool suppliers in the parking lot outside the yard to serve your every need.  What a deal! I can get hours of entertainment, food, and any tools I forgot to bring for less than the cost of one crappy summer Hollywood movie.

Dung beetles feasting on horse hockey
in Namibia.  Photo by Duwwel.

As I watched my fellow scavengers climb over over, under, and around the decaying automobile hulks, I was struck by the parallel between us and a load of dung beetles scouring over horse hockey.  In both cases we're taking detritus commonly thought as untouchable, diving into it will complete abandon and hauling it away for some other useful purpose not intended by the original owner.

Fellow parts pullers at the salvage yard

Donor Vehicle Acquired

My first pickup

I'm 50 something and the proud owner of my first pickup truck.  After several weeks of perusing eBay and CraigsList and seeing a number of unsuitable I finally purchased a 1987 Nissan pickup and it's RED!  It has a 5 speed manual transmission, manual steering, and power brakes.  The manual transmission is essential.  I'll be removing the gas engine and connecting the electric motor directly to the transmission. Automatic make the conversion process much harder.  The manual steering is also a plus.  Adding a power steering pump to the electric conversion is a extra chore I can do without.  Thanks to my friend, Chris, for taking me to pickup the pickup.

Fun at the Auto Recycling Center

The interior needs quit a bit of work. It's more than well worn. The first order of business was to fix the door handles inside and out.  Both outside door handles were broken as was one of the interior locks. This meant leaving at least one window open so you could reach inside to open the door. Chris and I spent a most enjoyable Saturday hunting up door parts at two of our local junkyard.  The last time I was in a junkyard was back in high school when I had a 1965 Rambler station wagon.  Regular trips to the junkyard were required to keep that vehicle on the road.  Junkyards haven't changed much since the 1970s with one exception--they're not junkyards anymore, now they're auto recycling centers and are sporting earth friendly names like Ecology Auto Parts.  After about a half a day and $60 we left with all the parts needed to make the doors work properly. Now I need to plan the details of the conversion and order the electric motor, controller and adapter to mate the electric motor to the transmission.